t.
Calcutta is also the most densely populated region of a tightly-packed country: 82,000 persons per square mile (Ashok n.p.). The growth of Calcutta in the past three decades has been phenomenal, almost doubling its 1967 population of 6.7 million inhabitants (Shinn 99). The effect this exceptional growth had on public services has been disastrous. As more than one report noted when India neared independence in 1947, "there was no comprehensive planning to meet the growing requirement for housing" when the nation was under British rule (Shinn 198).
Except for industrial construction, the situation has not improved since, the result of non-planning and historic circumstances related to Calcutta's geographic location. Calcutta lies near India's eastern border; it was hit hard by the partition with Pakistan in 1948 and the Bangladesh war for independence two decades later, which twice flooded the city with refugees. Periodic famines in Bengal have left the rural population with only one option for survival as well: flee to the city. Thus, while on paper Calcutta is a thriving port city - one that even boasts an open field of opportunity for skilled workers - there has been literally no room for all of the unskilled refugees pouring in. The fastest urban growth is in those areas that are poorest and least prepared, notes Ashok Khosia, president of India's Society for Development Alternatives, who pinpoints the fatal conundrum:
Each city contains the seeds of its own destruction because the more attractive it becomes, the more it will attract overwhelming numbers of immigrants (Linden 33).
This has not always been so. Until the past half century, "even the most wretched city slums have offered better access to paying jobs, more varied diets, better education and better health care than what was available in rural communities" (Linden 33). Calcutta has always had a special attraction in this sense, since it was no...